Disposition Alone
by oiseaus
Summary: She hasn't looked at him in over a year. For over a year he believed she hated him. But a rainy Friday, a telephone call, and a room bathed in afternoon shadow will force them to look at each other and finally say what's been left unsaid for over a year.


_A/N: Hello! Happy Monday (ugh). I really should be writing and catching up on my other stories, but I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks and decided to just write it. Hope you enjoy! (whenever I say that I feel like a waitress)_

**Disposition Alone**

They had each in their own heart reserved a small space to store hidden hope. An infinitesimal sprig of hope, growing and branching out from that organ within their chests as reality kept chugging on. Days passed, days where hopes and wishes and prayers were suppressed during the day and fervently whispered and dreamt of at night. They dreamt of an existence that would never be theirs. It could have been, once. It could have been...

But it couldn't, not now. And it wouldn't, not ever. They were both bound to others now, and in their world bonds were not broken.

_You don't have to marry him, you know._

_I do _have _to marry him._

So she had. Mary wed Sir Richard on a sunny Saturday, swathed in white, carrying the finest flowers. She had been glad for the veil, and even through it she hadn't looked at Matthew.

There were flashbulbs outside the church afterwards, blinding sunlight, rice and petals thrown by happy, rosy-cheeked young girls who still believed in fairytale endings. Mary's practiced smile had trembled.

And Matthew married Lavinia. She became a Crawley as Lady Mary Carlisle watched from a front pew, solely focused on the light haired, smiling girl, so unlike herself on her wedding day. Never once did Mary allow her eyes to fall upon him during the ceremony, and at the reception she danced with her father, laughed with Edith, and offered her warm congratulations to Mrs. Matthew Crawley.

"You can't know how much that means, coming from you, Mary," Lavinia had said sweetly, and Mary smiled breathlessly.

"Of course!"

It was better when they were apart, and Mary would not describe her situation as 'unhappy'. She ran a large house, large enough a house that she could conveniently lose herself in its rooms, newly wallpapered and decorated. She occupied herself with the things every wife occupies herself with: answering letters, planning meals, consulting with her gardner, and making sure that her home ran smoothly and seamlessly. It was repetitive, and something about the predictability of it all began to have a calming effect on her. It was easy to plan and sit through a dinner with guests of her husband's. Lady Mary Carlisle was everything society expected and admired in a wife, and everything Sir Richard had expected from her. Their marriage was quiet and impersonal, and from the beginning it had quickly become clear that any affection between the two was reserved for dinner conversation and social calls.

They didn't love each other. They did not even go through the tiresome process of learning terms of endearment for each other. It was always Mary and Richard. But it was what it was, and that was enough. It didn't matter. The deed had been done, the document signed, and now they played their roles. They were friends. That was enough.

* * *

After a year Mary didn't lay awake at night, alone, thinking about her old home. After a year she did not go into the library and miss the book that held a decade of her signatures and book titles in the library at Downton. After a year she did not dwell on the fact that the woman dressing and undressing her was a complete stranger and knew nothing of her heart. And, once a year had passed, she was able to bear the sound of her mother's voice through the telephone telling her that Lavinia was expecting a child in the winter.

A child. God, a child. His child. _Their _child.

Mary hadn't given a thought to children before Matthew. Or at least, she hadn't _wanted _them. Wanting a child to embody love and producing one out of duty are very different, and she had always viewed the sealing, binding appearance of a child as a duty. No, not just a child, a boy. From which end did Matthew's child stem?

Mary quickly pushed the thought aside. She wasn't allowed to have that thought, she reminded herself.

Richard passed her, seeing her leaning against the wall, one hot hand braced on the table.

"Are you all right?" he asked, a genuine note of concern in his voice.

Mary nodded, but didn't move. She didn't have to pretend in front of him. She knew he would never comfort her. Not in any way that counted.

"Yes, perfectly," Mary answered, and after his curt nod and turn towards his study she exhaled and righted herself, a hand resting across her abdomen. She looked down and ran her hand across it, secretly pleased that she had no reason to suspect a pregnancy. It was infrequent and never had left consequences, although she knew that inevitably the day would come. She hated herself for being glad of her current lack of a child.

* * *

Mary began to visit her aunt in London. She payed calls to women she had known once, girls that had twirled in cream dresses under a tent in July and thought only to complain about their governesses and gossip. Now they were other men's wives, living in homes they were only just becoming acquainted with, small children clinging to their skirts. Their conversations were tiresome and rehearsed. _How is your new maid? Was she trained in Paris? Ah, I see. And the children? You must be so proud_. _You must be so happy._

Spring bloomed into summer, which melted into a cold winter. Richard and Mary visited for Edith's birthday. It was a small dinner, only family. Lavinia glowed, and Mary watched as she left afterwards, her arm in Matthew's. It was only right, Mary told herself. She hadn't felt the baby move as her mother and Edith had. She hadn't looked at Matthew the whole evening, and was curiously glad of Richard's conversation at the table. He didn't call attention to her, didn't mention anything about how smoothly everything at Haxby went along under her guidance and seamless attention and, for once, Mary was glad to be shadowed.

In her bed at Haxby (she never could quite call it 'home'), Mary turned away from the window, acutely aware that it was between one and three in the morning and infuriatingly unable to sleep. Lavinia had been so happy.

* * *

The telephone rang late in the afternoon on a rainy Friday in November. Mary looked up in the drawing room at the sound of it and waited to be called. It must have been for Richard, since she heard muffled speaking ahead of her even as she got up from the red chair and walked towards the front hall. Everything was spotless and white in Haxby. Suddenly she missed the dark wood of Downton.

"Mary!" Richard called.

"I'm here!" she said, swiftly entering the front hall, a curious expression crossing her face. "Who was it?"

He smiled. "That was your father," he said. "It's a girl, but he seemed pleased enough."

Mary let out a soft breath. "How marvelous," she said softly. Richard leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"One day that'll be you," he said with another smile.

"One day!" she chirped with a nod. Richard had expressed a desire for a child in the same frank, blunt manner with which he expressed everything else. It had been at the dinner table one evening, just the two of them.

_"It's quiet during the day," _he had mused. And he was right. There was no life in the house.

_"Do you miss London, then?"_

He shrugged_. "I miss the noise. It helps me focus."_

_"I'll ask the servants to be less considerate in their work," _Mary said with a hint of playfulness in her voice.

_"Children would do the trick, I think," _he'd said, setting his cutlery down and drinking a sip of wine_._

Mary's hands froze, but her mind didn't_. "I see. The sound of a squalling baby would make it easier to work, would it?"_

He chuckled and, for a moment, as it sometimes happened, they were simply friends_. "Not exactly."_

_"That's how it starts, you know. They're quite noisy. As they grow up it's stamped out of them."_

Richard smiled at her._ "Ah, is that how it happens?"_

_"I'm afraid so."_

_"Do you want children, Mary?" _he'd asked.

She set down her own cutlery_. "I don't know," _she'd answered truthfully. Because she didn't know. Not anymore.

* * *

The telephone rang again three days later in the morning, and Mary got to it before anyone else. Matthew's voice greeted her, and she put a trembling hand on the table to steady herself.

"It's such wonderful news, Matthew. Really," she said as they finished pleasantries.

She could feel the smile through the receiver. "She's beautiful, Mary. Just perfect."

"What have you called her?" Mary asked softly.

He paused. "Claire," he said, and his voice was also soft. "It means-"

"Light."

"That's right."

There was a long pause in which neither of them spoke. They stood there, immobile in their respective hallways, each holding the telephone to their ear, fervently hanging on to every word, to that precious connection to each other through a wire.

"Listen, Mary," he said at last, and she exhaled. "Will you come see her? You and Richard. She's beautiful."

"Of course," Mary responded automatically, her heart already clenching at the thought of seeing the child, of seeing them. They were so happy.

They went the next day in the new, shiny blue car Richard had bought. They spoke about politics. Mary was glad of it. She liked debating with him. She appreciated the distraction. She wondered if perhaps Richard knew that she was terrified, and did it on purpose.

He didn't know.

Carson gave her the same look when she stepped out of the car -joy mixed strangely with sorrow. She smiled at him. _I'm not unhappy, but I can change nothing._

Even as they walked through the door Mary could hear the sound of soft cooing and happiness melting from the drawing room. She faltered, and Richard turned around ahead of her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

They walked into the drawing room and were greeted with wide smiles and open arms. Mary kissed her mother, who seemed suddenly overcome with maternal memories. Edith was holding the baby while Lavinia looked on adoringly, and Matthew had his back to Mary as he spoke with her grandmother.

"Mary," Isobel said warmly, and came towards what would have been her daughter if...

"Isobel," Mary said, and her heart thudded in her chest with the affection in Isobel's embrace and kiss on her cheek. "How are you?"

Isobel released Mary and smiled. "A happy grandmother!" There it was, that word again. Isobel took her hand and squeezed it slightly as Richard seemed to blend in with the others, bending over to see the new baby. "And how are you, my dear?"

Mary smiled brightly. "I'm very well," she said. "Very _happy _to meet my new cousin!"

And, as if hearing her words, Lavinia looked up and called her over. "Mary!" she said in that eager, innocent voice. Mary looked to her and smiled with what she hoped was warmth at the image of Lavinia Crawley holding Matthew Crawley's daughter. "Come! You must hold her!"

Mary was already shaking her head as she neared the sofa, but Lavinia was laughing. "It's all right," she ensured.

And Mary sat down beside her, beside Matthew's wife, and was suddenly holding an unbelievably small, warm baby. Claire was sleeping, and her little face was the picture of infant beauty. She had soft, delicate features, and her hands that peeped out from the lilac she was wrapped in were impossibly tiny, with ten perfect fingers. Mary watched in fascination as the baby's hands turned to fists and, as if Claire could sense the awkwardness with which Mary held her, she began to squirm and mewl pitifully.

Mary looked up with fearful eyes at Lavinia, but instead of taking her daughter, Lavinia eased Mary's arms, whispered words of encouragement in a sweet voice so as to not wake her child, and Claire curled against Mary, one small hand batting at her breast and then settling on her.

"She's beautiful," Mary said at last, and Lavinia smiled.

"She looks like Matthew already," she murmured. Mary looked at the baby. Apart from the swirl of soft hair on her head she looked like neither of them, Mary thought. She looked like a baby.

"I see you've met Claire," a low, rather reverent voice said, and Matthew sat down beside her.

Mary nodded. "You were right. She's perfect," she said softly. Lavinia had turned to speak with Mary's mother, and they were alone in the excitement. "Are all babies this small?"

She heard Matthew chuckle. "I think so. Mother says she'll grow exponentially."

The baby mewled again and Mary shhed her instinctively, surprising herself with the gentleness in her voice.

"Did Lavinia ask you yet?"

"Ask me what?"

Matthew looked down at his child and then back at her, only seeing her cheek. "We'd like you to be Claire's godmother. Only if you want to, of course."

Mary closed her eyes. Across the room, Violet watched them. She saw the tension in Mary's shoulders yet the odd gentleness with which she held Matthew's baby. He said something, looking at her, and, for the first time in over a year, Mary turned of her own accord, not out of obligation or politeness, and looked at him.

* * *

Mary was speechless.

"We named her Claire Mary, so it only seemed right."

And Mary's heart shattered. It was as if a Christmas ornament had fallen, breaking into a thousand sharp pieces, and she could almost hear the sound that it made. She looked at Matthew, and he looked at her. Time was suspended. Mary's throat burned and Matthew's chest felt tight. It was the same look that they had shared all those years ago when they had been young, foolish, and fearless.

_Are you a creature of duty?_

It echoed between both of them. It was heartbreaking.

"Of course," Mary coughed out at last, and their inability to move or breathe disappeared. "Thank you."

Matthew said nothing, and then his daughter crooned and Lavinia leaned over to take her again. "Did you ask her, dear?" she asked, and Matthew nodded. "Oh, and you said yes, didn't you?"

Mary missed the warmth in her arms. She smiled, and it seemed the most difficult thing she had ever done. "Yes!"

Lavinia looked at her adoringly. "Oh, Mary, I'm so glad. So glad."

Mary put her hands on her knees and stood, saying something about seeing Anna, and slipped away from it all, trying to sort out what she is feeling and chastising herself for doing what she swore she wouldn't do -look at him.

She paced the hall, hearing the grandfather clock tick and the continuing sounds of joy from the room she had left. Looking at him had confirmed what she had trained herself to deny for years. She was still in love with him.

_We're cursed, you and I._

It was horrible, wicked, even sinful if she subscribed to a belief system. Nothing could come of it but her own heartbreak. She was filled with guilt and self-hatred. She thought of Richard, which surprised her. She looked at the clock, and she leaned against the opposite wall.

Had he seen it in her dark eyes? Had Matthew discovered in that suspended moment of time what was in her heart? Did he-

"Mary?"

She looked up and realized she was crying. "Are you quite well?"

Mary began to nod, then shook her head. She brought a hand up to cup her mouth, muffling the sound of a soft sob. His hand was at her elbow. "Come, talk to me." He steered her into the nearest room and shut the door behind them. It was a day sitting room, rarely used because of its northern facing windows.

She walked away from his touch. It wasn't right. It wasn't allowed. But she continued to sob, and he continued to clench and unclench his hands by his side, wanting to go to her yet painfully aware that she didn't want him to.

"Mary, please tell me what's wrong," he pleaded, which only made her cry more.

"Don't," she managed to choke out between gasping sobs. "Please, don't. I just need-"

And he went to her. He couldn't bear to hear her tortured voice and her fractured sobs for a moment longer. She pushed against his chest as he awkwardly embraced her, and he felt her shoulders slump and her form drop at least two inches as her knees gave way.

"God, Mary, tell me what's wrong!" he cried in distress.

She relaxed, and her forehead fell against his chest and she whispered, "I'm alone. I have no one."

He was silent, and she pulled away from him, her cries subsiding, although she drew in a sharp gasp every few moments as she calmed. "Tell me."

She had already begun to speak. "I live in an empty house, a house that I've never felt was my home. I come back to Downton and I don't feel at home. I have no home anymore. I live with people I don't know, who I don't speak to. I come here and I am a wife, not a child." She raised her hands and then they fell, slapping her sides. "I feel as if I'm a stranger even to myself."

He gazed at her then with such sadness, such care and such love that she quickly turned away. The love of a cousin. Of a friend.

For God's sake, he'd just had a child. Mary drew herself up, beginning to make an apology and flee the room, but he had already begun to speak.

"You're unhappy. I see it every time we see each other."

She shook her head. "No, it's not that." She looked at the ground and then back up at him, and her eyes stung. "Do you ever wonder about us?"

"Us?"

She turned towards the windows. Even with the curtains drawn open the room was bathed in afternoon shadow. "I'd have liked that, you know. What you have with Lavinia." She laughed bitterly. "I know it's wrong to say it, especially today, but...We could have been happy."

"Oh, Mary," he said softly. There was a long pause in which Mary dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips and Matthew was silent. Finally, he looked up at her. "Why did you marry him? You told me you would be happy."

_You must never pay attention to the things I say._

"I had to marry him."

Matthew made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "No, you didn't, Mary!"

She smiled. "We ended what we had, and you found someone else. I found someone else. Isn't it the same thing?"

He didn't respond, but the same thought crossed through both of their minds. They had found someone else, someone whom perhaps they loved. But one thing would always be true -they would never love another like they had loved each other. Both Mary and Matthew buried the thought as quickly as it had sprung up, and neither said anything about it.

"Are you saying that if Lavinia hadn't-"

"No, Matthew!" Mary quickly defended herself. "I married Richard! I married him for a reason you will never understand, and that's that. You mustn't question it. I wouldn't have married you even if you hadn't proposed to Lavinia."

"Tell me," Matthew said. "Tell me, because seeing you so miserable and knowing we could have somehow prevented it will torture me as long as I live."

Mary's hands were sweating, and she felt slightly faint. This was the moment that she had swore to herself would never come to pass. And with the weakness she had just displayed, she knew it couldn't be put off any longer.

"You will despise me."

He laughed quietly and looked back at her. "I'll never despise you."

Mary took a fortifying breath and turned away from him again, walking to the window. She couldn't bear to see his face. And then she told him about that night in 1913 and her reasons for marrying Sir Richard Carlisle.

* * *

When she turned back around, terrified of his silence, she saw that tears had tracked down his cheeks even as he wiped them away. He had taken a seat in one of the chairs, resting his elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, and he didn't look at her.

"So, now you know," Mary said in a businesslike tone. "Don't worry, we'll be leaving soon. I'm sure Richard is eager to get back to his study." She began to move towards the door when a hand came and took hers. She stopped, and she didn't look at him.

"Mary, did you really think I would despise you for that?" Matthew asked quietly.

"Don't you?"

He stood, dropping her hand, but turning her to face him. His voice was low and serious. "_This _is what kept us apart? Mary, if I'd known I wouldn't have-"

"You wouldn't have what, Matthew?" Mary said bitterly. "Gone to war? Married Lavinia?"

And Matthew nodded. He hated himself for it. He had grown to love Lavinia, even more so after the birth of their daughter, but being in this room alone with Mary had made him confront feelings he had suppressed for years and years, believing that she avoided him because she hated him, when all along she had loved him and tortured herself over a secret that didn't affect his opinion of her in the slightest.

"This is pointless," Mary said, even as her heart felt weak and she felt lightheaded. "We're leaving."

* * *

Sir Richard Carlisle and his wife got back into the car and were driven back to Haxby. Mary should have felt relief at telling Matthew. It was over now. She could go on living. But it only made matters worse.

She began having horrible thoughts. She thought of Matthew being with her some nights. She thought of living at Crawley House, somewhere she found she would probably have felt at home in. And when, after six months, she too became pregnant she wondered, if only for a split second, what her child would look like were it Matthew's as well. She found herself pathetic, and physically felt it as the baby tired her and made sleeping even more difficult than it had been before.

* * *

At Crawley House, Matthew got out of bed late at night, walking away from Lavinia, past the nursery and downstairs to read. But he didn't read, not really. He looked at pages and thought terrible thoughts. He wondered, as he had once before, what it would be like falling asleep next to Mary. He thought of a world without their troubles. He thought of her secret, and how much it wouldn't have mattered to him, not even then. And when Mary came to Downton for Christmas and he saw how her hand always seemed to wander to the graceful swell that changed her figure, he wondered, if only for a split second, what their child might have looked like. He was pathetic, and found himself even more so when he realized how much more frightened he was upon hearing she was in labour than he had been with Lavinia.

* * *

It was a difficult birth, one that left Mary quite literally unable to sit up on her own, having to be propped up with pillows and the help of the nurse, and when the baby cried for the first time she begged for it, cried weakly for it, and the squirming, pink little infant was put on her chest immediately. When they took him away Mary began to sob, and the nurses worked quickly, returning the precious bundle to the new mother, who frightened the baby with her own cries as she hugged him impossibly close, kissing his head and stomach and perfect fingers. Apart from the swirl of dark hair on his head, Mary didn't think he looked like either of them. He looked like a baby.

Richard kissed her when he was allowed in, and didn't understand her tears as they continued to flow. He was enthralled by his son, and didn't ask to take him from his wife, who seemed particularly changed by it. Richard left and the baby nursed, and Mary cried again. No one would ever understand her tears.

"I telephoned your father," he said when he came again, finding Mary relatively calmer, the baby's cheek resting against the bare skin at the top of her nightgown, skin to skin, as she pressed the occasional kiss to his dark head. "He's thrilled."

Mary nodded. A boy.

Richard sat on the side of the bed and watched the two of them, how Mary, who had feared through the entire pregnancy that she would never be maternal, was the very picture of a loving mother. "And," he said at last. "I called Matthew. And Lavinia," he added.

Mary looked up from her child.

"He's so happy. They're both so happy."

_Happy._

Mary wondered if he knew, somehow, that the first person she had wanted to know was Matthew. That their hearts had knit together years ago and, once severed, were still healing. That they still needed each other. That a part of them would always belong to the other.

He did know. He resented it, but he knew.

_Happy. _And, for once, as Mary looked back down at her child, the most treasured gift she had ever been given, she felt happy.

She was happy.

* * *

_A/N: What an Angst Festival. I hope I did everything justice. Thanks so much to MrsElizabethDarcy, who worked out some bits with me and offered great insight, and to Cls2011 who listened to me agonize for a good hour about what title to use. What did you all think? _


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